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Friday, November 7, 2014

Vatican City, 7 November 2014 (VIS) –
“The Eucharist, mystery of communion” is the theme of the
ecumenical convention of bishops, friends of the Focolare Movement.
This is an annual event uniting bishops not only from different
countries but also from different churches and ecclesial communities,
defined by Pope Francis as the result of “what is produced by the
love of the Word of God and the will to conform existence to the
Gospel; these attitudes, created and accompanied by the grace of the
Holy Spirit, help nurture many initiatives, allowing solid
friendships to thrive and producing significant moments of
brotherhood and sharing”.

The Holy Father reiterated the value,
in a troubled world, of a “clear testimony of unity between
Christians and an explicit declaration of esteem, respect and, more
precisely, fraternity between us. This fraternity is a shining sign
of our faith in the risen Christ. Indeed, if we intend to endeavour,
as Christians, to respond incisively to the many problems and crises
of our time, it is necessary to speak and act as brothers, so that
everyone can easily recognise us as such. This too is a way –
perhaps for us the first – of responding to the globalisation of
indifference with a globalisation of solidarity and fraternity”.

Among the issues that currently call to
the conscience of Christians and their pastors, the Pope mentioned
the “lack of freedom to publicly express one's religion and to live
openly in accordance with Christian ethics; the persecution of
Christians and other minorities; the sad phenomenon of terrorism; the
refugee crisis caused by wars and other reasons; the challenge of
fundamentalism and, at the other extreme, exasperated secularism”.

These challenges are a call to “seek
with renewed effort, with constancy and patience, the ways that lead
to unity, so that the world might believe, and so that we first may
be filled with confidence and courage. Among these paths there is a
special route, and it is the Eucharist as the mystery of communion. …
The Lord's Supper, a central moment in the life of the community, a
'moment of truth', is the encounter between Christ's grace and our
responsibility; there, in the Eucharist, we are clearly aware that
unity is a gift, and at the same time it is a very serious
responsibility”, concluded the Pontiff.

Vatican City, 7 November 2014 (VIS) –
The participants in the national assembly of the Italian
Confederation of Major Superiors (CISM) – around a hundred people –
were received in audience by the Pope this morning in the Clementine
Hall. The Pontiff wished to share with them a few points of reference
for their path, emphasising that religious life helps the Church to
achieve the “attraction” that enables her to grow. Faced with the
witness of a brother or a sister who truly lives a religious life,
people ask themselves, “what is there here?”, “what is it that
leads this person beyond a worldly horizon?”. This is the first
issue: helping the Church to grow by attraction. Without
proselytising: attraction”.

The second point was that radicality,
in different forms, is required of every Christian, but in the case
of religious persons it assumes the form of prophetic witness. “The
testimony of an evangelical life is what distinguishes the missionary
disciple and in particular those who follow the Lord in consecrated
life. And prophetic witness coincides with sanctity. True prophecy is
never ideological, it does not oppose the institution: it is
institution. Prophecy is institutional, it does not follow fashion,
but is always a sign of contradiction according to the Gospel, like
Jesus was. Jesus, for example, was a sign of contradiction to the
religious authorities of His time: to the heads of the Pharisees and
the Sadducees, the doctors of the Law, but also to the others, such
as the Essenes, Zealots, etc”.

To explain the third point, the Pope
quoted the president of the Major Superiors: “We do not want to
fight rearguard battles in defence, but rather to spend ourselves
among the people”, certain of the faith that God has always made
germinate and grow in His Kingdom. This is not easy, it is not to be
taken for granted; it requires conversion; it requires, first and
foremost, prayer and worship; and it means sharing with the holy
people of God who live in the peripheries of history. Removing
oneself from the centre. Every charism, to live and to be fruitful,
is required to decentralise, because at the centre there is only
Jesus Christ. The charism is not to be conserved like a bottle of
distilled water, but must instead be made to bear fruit, with
courage, placed at the service of current reality, of cultures, of
history, as the great missionaries of our institutes teach us”.

Fraternity is another of the signs that
religious life must offer in our time, the Pope affirmed; a time in
which the dominant culture is individualistic and focused on
subjective rights. “Consecrated life can help the Church and
society as a whole, offering witness of fraternity, that it is
possible to live together as brothers in diversity, because in the
community one does not put oneself first, but rather one finds
oneself with people who are different in terms of character, age,
formation, sensibility … and yet we seek to live as brothers. Of
course we do not always succeed, but one recognises one's mistakes,
asks for forgiveness and forgives others. This is good for the
Church: it causes the lymph of fraternity to circulate. And this is
also good for all of society.

But this fraternity “presupposes
God's paternity and the maternity of the Church and of the Mother,
the Virgin Mary”: a relationship cultivated day by day “with
prayer, with the Eucharist, with worship, with the Rosary. In this
way we renew each day our 'being' with Christ and in Christ, and in
this way we place ourselves in an authentic relationship with the
Father in heaven and the Mother Church, our hierarchical Holy Mother
Church, and the Mother Mary. If our life is always located in terms
of this fundamental relations, always renewed, then we are able also
to achieve an authentic fraternity, a brotherhood of witness, that
attracts”.

Vatican City, 7 November 2014 (VIS) –
“The central challenge in the post-2015 development agenda is to
ensure that globalisation benefits everyone. ... We need to
strengthen multilateralism to help achieve this goal and manage the
different risks and interlinked challenges associated with
globalisation”, said Archbishop Bernardito Auza, Holy See Permanent
Observer at the United Nations in New York, speaking at the 69th
Session of the United Nations General Assembly on 27 October, on the
theme “Globalisation and Interdependence”.

The prelate spoke about the great
benefits globalisation can bring, as well as the widening
inequalities. “When globalisation brings people together as equal
partners, it creates mutually beneficial results, a win-win
partnership for all. If not, globalisation breeds greater
inequalities and marginalization, exploitation and injustice. Indeed,
as with most human endeavours, globalisation works for good or ill,
depending on the underlying ethic and policies driving the process”.

The nuncio went on to mention two
related issues, culture and the phenomenon of migration. “Culture
is a prime vehicle to express and share our common humanity”, he
said. “It is critically important if authentic human flourishing is
the ultimate goal of economic activity and development and … given
all these benefits and values of culture, we should not reduce it to
the logic of market exchange. ... A community’s culture is their
gift to the global common good, for it is an expression of their
humanity, and through culture we can enter into a real dialogue
because it speaks to our common humanity”.

On migration, the archbishop emphasised
that “it affects everyone, not only because of the extent of the
phenomenon, but also because of the social, economic, political,
cultural and religious problems it raises”, adding that “the Holy
See would like to highlight the particularly troubling cases of human
trafficking and contemporary forms of slavery spawned by migration. …
These modern forms of slavery are the opposite of a globalisation
driven by the culture of encounter and the values of solidarity and
justice”.

“It is necessary always to see the
human face of migration, to see the migrant as a fellow human being,
endowed with the same human dignity and rights as ourselves. It is
only then that we can respond to the globalisation of migration with
the globalisation of solidarity and cooperation. Moreover, solidarity
with migrants is not enough, if it is not accompanied by efforts
towards bringing peace in conflict-ridden regions and a more
equitable economic world order. If globalisation has shrunk the world
into a village, we may as well become good neighbours”, he
concluded.

Vatican City, 7 November 2014 (VIS) –
Today the Holy Father received in audience:

- Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Muller,
prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith;

- Cardinal Agostino Vallini, vicar
general of His Holiness for the diocese of Rome;

- Cardinal Claudio Hummes, prefect
emeritus for the Clergy; delegate for Amazonia at the National
Conference of Bishops of Brazil.

Yesterday, 6 November, the Holy Father
received in audience Cardinal Joao Braz de Aviz, prefect of the
Congregation for the Institutes of Consecrated Life and the Societies
of Apostolic Life, with Archbishop Jose Rodriguez Carballo, secretary
of the same dicastery.

- Msgr. Jean-Philippe Nault as bishop
of Digne (area 6,986, population 163,500, Catholics 112,800, priests
41, permanent deacons 10, religious 136), France. The bishop-elect
was born in Paris, France in 1965 and ordained a priest in 1998.
After his studies in agricultural engineering and artificial
intelligence, he obtained a licentiate in theology from the
Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome, and has served in a number of
pastoral roles, including director of the Shrine of Ars, parish
priest of Notre-Dame de Bourg and dean of Bourg-en-Bresse, in the
diocese of Belley-Ars. He succeeds Bishop Francois-Xavier Loizeau,
whose resignation upon reaching the age limit was accepted by the
Holy Father.

Msgr. Curtin was born in Cremorne,
Australia in 1945 and ordained a priest in 1971. He holds a doctorate
in theology from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome and a
bachelor's degree in education from the University of Melbourne. He
has served in a number of pastoral and academic roles, including
chaplain and director of the School of Religion and Philosophy of the
Australian Catholic University in Oakleigh; director of the
department of religion and philosophy of the Australian Catholic
University, Victoria; director of the department of theology of the
Australian Catholic University, Victoria; and vice-president and
subsequently president of the Melbourne College of Divinity. He is
currently director of the Catholic Theological College, Melbourne,
parish priest of Greythorn, and episcopal vicar of Melbourne for the
East Region. In 2012 he was named Chaplain of His Holiness.

Rev. Fr. Edwards was born in
Balikpapan, Indonesia in 1959 and ordained a priest in 1986. He holds
a doctorate in philosophy and a bachelor's degree in letters and
education from the Monash University of Melbourne. He has held a
number of roles in the Congregation of Missionary Oblates of Mary
Immaculate, including vice-rector of the Iona College of Brisbane;
master of novices art the St. Mary's Seminary, Mulgrave; professor at
the Catholic Theological College of Melbourne; and head of
scholastics at the St. Mary's Seminary, Mulgrave. He is currently
rector of the Iona College, Brisbane.